SEPTEMBER SOUP, BRAYDON’S BREAD, AND FALL SALAD
Shalinee~~
It is 10:01pm as I sit down to write this. I think this is a record for me (took me just shy of 2 hours!). This week Braydon helped, though, by baking bread for our two families (!), so that explains my early evening. Anyway, no matter, because, I am totally exhausted (I am going to try to not make that statement a weekly occurrence in these notes, but really… I am totally exhausted. I have another respiratory ‘thing’ going on (i.e., yet another chest cold… hoping to be able to finally conquer this one without antibiotics… HOPING for that… oh, and don’t worry, I was very conscientious not to cough into the soup while I was cooking tonight!). But, you know what? I don’t even care how exhausted I am, because, I have that awesome familiar Monday-night-post-swap-cooking-feeling: HALLELUJIAH!–we’re all set for the week!!!!!!!!
This week:
- “September Soup” (just warm it up)
- Homemade bread, made from scratch, by Braydon
- Fall Salad with Blanchard’s Balsamic Vinagrette
In mid-September of 2004, when we were just about halfway through our wait for Kyle and Owen, some of our friends through an amazing and elaborate (and huge) baby shower for us. Friends came from near and far for it, and it was really one of the most awesome and memorable weekends of my entire life. The actual baby shower was Saturday, and I had nothing to do with any of the details of organizing that. But many of our long-distance friends arrived on Thursday-Friday for the weekend. On Friday night we threw a casual dinner party for all of our out-of-town guests. Lots of people had been traveling that day, some flying in from as far as California, and a few would be newly arriving throughout the evening. I wanted it to be a light, casual, help-yourself ‘buffet’ type meal, but all homemade from scratch with love by me. I also wanted to showcase the local bounty of Bucks County in September. I decided on one of my favorite soups – a recipe originally from my Mom (although heavily revised over the years by me); a salad with fresh local fruit and blue cheese (Amish blue cheese from PA); and lots of fresh bread. Everyone loved it. Although I had been making this meal for years (and had even eaten the soup quite often growing up as a kid), now this soup reminds me – ALWAYS – of that baby shower weekend. I make this soup at least once, if not two or three times, each fall. Usually each time I make a batch I freeze half of it. This time, I just am giving half to you instead!
THE SOUP:
September Soup
(a rustic creamy soup perfect for September when the tomatoes are overflowing in gardens and farm-stands)
1 stick unsalted butter 2 T olive oil 1 very large, or 2 medium, onion (Vidalia if possible), sliced thin 4 cloves garlic, chopped 1 tsp dried basil 1 tsp dried thyme Salt and pepper to taste 8-10 (about 5 pounds) fresh ripe tomatoes 3 T tomato paste ¼ cup flour 32 ounces chicken or vegetable broth 1 tsp sugar 1 cup cream (or milk) Fresh chopped parsleyPlace tomatoes in pot of boiling water until skins start to break and peel; place in ice bath to cool; remove skins and cores; chop and save until later. In bottom of large pot melt ½ of the butter with the olive oil over medium-high heat; add onions, garlic, basil, thyme, salt, pepper. Sauté, stirring regularly, until onions are very wilted and browned/caramelized. Add tomato paste and mix in well. Add broth. Add tomatoes. Heat together until simmering. In a separate cup, whisk together flour and 1 cup water. Add to soup pot. Simmer about an hour, stirring often. Add sugar, cream, and last ½ of butter.
THE SALAD:
The salad is our favorite in the fall. I love to use fresh apples and pears from our local orchards during this time of year. The fruit I gave you is from Bechdtolds Orchard—right down the street from us.
Thinly slice the apple, pear, and red onion. Place on top of a bed of salad greens. Top generously with crumbled blue cheese. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Dress with balsamic vinaigrette. Note: usually I add toasted pecans to this salad, but I didn’t this time because of Alex’s nut allergy.
Balsamic Vinaigrette
From one of my top-3 all-time favorite cookbooks At Blanchard’s Table: A Trip to the Beach Cookbook by Melinda and Robert Blanchard
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar 1 garlic clove, minced ½ tsp salt ½ tsp freshly ground pepper 2/3 cup olive oilIn a small bowl, whisk together everything except the olive oil. Gradually whisk in the oil until well blended. Store in glass jar. (note: you can keep this dressing in the fridge up to one week.) Shake well before serving.
THE BREAD:
Braydon is the Bread Master!!! He made the bread dough today/tonight, and it is rising overnight. He is going to bake it early tomorrow morning so that it would be as fresh as possible. 😉
It is now 10:41 pm and I’m calling it a day!
ENJOY!!!
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from Heather to Shalineedate Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:26 PM subject noodles & dumplings
So, this week the swap was a God-send for me. You know how I have that chest cold again… well… Braydon convinced me to go to the Dr. today and… sure enough… I’ve got another respiratory infections… on antibiotics AGAIN. Ugh. Anyway, the thing was, by the end of the day I was feeling so crappy and groggy and just plain horrible. If it weren’t for the swap just sitting there waiting in the fridge, this surely would have been a take-out-pizza night. And I am so glad that it was not (for my own sake, especially… imagine if I had to eat pizza when I’m feeling like such crap?). So, I whipped up your dinner and it was just a lovely evening despite my being sick. While I got it going Braydon and the kids ate the appetizer you packed while watching clips of Alexander Nevsky on YouTube (yeah, bizarre, don’t even ask!). When the dinner was set on the table all I could think was, “If it weren’t for the swap I could NEVER have pulled something like this off.” Owen went to town on the dumplings (seriously, I think he at at least 2/3 of the dumplings you gave us… which were a LOT of dumplings). Meera slurped up the noodles. And Kyle dabbled in it but then asked for yogurt (our stand-by go-to back-up food for when dinner just doesn’t fly for one reason or the other). So, I say, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad. Braydon and I liked it all very much. I was totally, totally impressed with the dumplings— so, THANK YOU!!!
By the way, on a side-note related to the swap– I have to tell you that on Tuesday night, while we were re-heating the tomato soup, something UNPRECEDENTED happened here in our home. Dinner was all set to go (thanks to the swap) and the evening was already feeling leisurely and relaxed (prior to swap that was unheard of on a weeknight). On a whim, totally spontaneously, I decided that we’d make a dessert. I had all the ingredients ready to make banana pudding (Braydon — southern boy — loves banana pudding, but I had never made it, and hoped to some day soon, but had no idea when…). So, Owen and I (while Kyle paraded around the kitchen “serenading” us with a wooden flute, and Meera played with Braydon) made a big batch of banana pudding… that is now in our fridge this week, making this week feel special (because we so rarely have dessert… let alone during the week). I seriously don’t think we’ve ever made a “real” dessert on a weeknight before in my entire parenting experience to-date. So, this was big. And it was only possible because of the swap. Anyway, I wanted to share this idea with you because it was super simple and easy to make (and a great way to use up ripe-and-almost-over-ripe bananas). I made up this recipe, and surely the true Southern chefs would be appalled at it, but we five love it.
1 box of banana cream instant pudding 1 box of french vanilla instant pudding 1 pint heavy cream 1 Tb vanilla 1 Tb sugar 1 box Nilla Wafers 4 very ripe bananas, sliced
Mixing both puddings together, prepare according to the directions on the box (takes 5 minutes in the mixer!). Transfer to bowl. In same mixer (don’t even need to clean it out), whip cream, vanilla, sugar to make light and fluffy whipped cream (less than 5 minutes in the mixer!). Put a couple of handfuls of Nilla Wafers in a zip-loc bag and roll with rolling pin to crush the cookies; set this aside for use later. In serving bowl layer:
whole Nilla Wafers, banana slices, pudding, whipped cream. Repeat and repeat until bowl if fully layered and all of the ingredients are gone. Lastly, dump the crushed up Nilla Wafers on top and spread out to form a little layer of cookies on top. Store in fridge — it gets better each day it sits!!! YUM!
